Everything you need to know about Crossword Puzzles!

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Tag Archives: What is a Crossword?

Crosswords have been around for quite some time. The start of the 19th century saw the first crossword puzzle published in a Sunday newspaper by a journalist named Arthur Wynne on December 21, 1913.

Arthur, a Liverpudlian, is known to be the glorious inventor of the ever popular word game. His version of a crossword was dissimilar to those we are familiar with today. Instead of branching lengths of boxes to input letters into, his crossword was diamond shaped and lacked any of the black squares we see in today’s take on the challenging word game. It was with this initial puzzle that the world first learned how to master the art of crosswords.

The first ever crossword puzzle by Arthur Wynne in 1913

To put it simply, a crossword requires a player to fill in white squares with letters to create words based on clues provided.These lengths of white squares intersect and sometimes run parallel with one another. Such positionings allow for plenty of challenge when it comes to sitting down and solving one. Crosswords also come in different difficulties: some provide exceptionally easy clues whilst others, known as Cryptic crosswords give incredibly complex clues that can often leave one scratching one’s head in bemusement.

The crossword quickly became a common household past-time and to this day remains a very strong concept in our daily lives. You can still find crosswords in pretty much every newspaper, books dedicated to providing hundreds, if not thousands of crossword challenges are published en masse, and they’re also a wonderful learning aid for children throughout their school years.
With the rise of the internet, online crosswords and crossword generators have become easy and free to access whenever you want.

What once was a new concept has assimilated itself into the modern household. And being such a fun and commonly known game, it’s certainly set to stick around for many years to come.